Why the hell is DigitalPoint selling their webmaster email database?

If Bubba Shawn sold his webmaster email database, then I'd think you'd be getting a hell of a lot more emails than 2.. â– 

Being that said...I would suggest to never publicly display your email address (even if it is at a forum). √

 

Nice but i think Shawn you should install some type of image verification in sending email function...
Saad

 

Ahh... this explains the burst of spam this week. I changed my DP address, so it's nice to see it's fixed and won't be an issue again.

As far as occasionally getting PM/email spammed through a forum goes (through the form), that doesn't bother me as much as having the email address out there on who-knows-how-many lists.

A good reminder as to why it's nice to use a separate forwarder for everything, rather than having one main email address out there that gets trashed the first time a spammer gets a hold of it. I probably have about 50 forwarders going to my main email address, so simply swapping out the DP forwarder cut off this source of spam. So... if anyone that's not a spammer emails me at my old DP address, you can disregard the auto-replied advice about how you should go kill yourself.

 

Mike S,

I find it a little strange.

Call me Sherlock Holmes. Call me Colombo, but I think you have your hands on the smoking gun.

Here are the facts.

I get a spam email from a guy called Mike S who somehow got my email address that I used to register on a forum I have not used in over 12 months.

ie. Digital Point.

I go back to that forum to see what is going on and people are complaining about another email spam message asking people to buy 35,000 emails in a database concerning Digital Point users for US$50.

And then you post on the same topic with the same initials as the creator of this spam message.

Your post and the spam email are linked in time by less than 1 hour.

So the obvious 3 questions are Mike:

Are you the owner of the Z Directory ?

Did you purchase this database of emails for $50 ?

Did you subsequently send out spam emails to members of this database ?

 

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or stupidity, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and go with sarcasm... so here's my sarcastic reply.

Yeah, that's me. I spammed myself as well, then came here just to report myself, using my real name, because I didn't think anyone at Digital Point would be smart enough to piece it all together. Looking back, I should have registered here as Mike Reiler to throw off the dogs. I have no explanation as to why I registered almost a year ago and waited until this week to spam everyone, including myself, then come here and complain about my unacceptable behavior.

Don't bother reading Shawn's post where he fixed the setting that allowed all of our email addresses to be seen. I doubt that had anything to do with the spam!

Besides, how could it not be me? Mike is a rare name. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one. And S is rare initial for a last name. Only rare names like Smith, Simpson, etc... start with an S!



If you get a break from cracking these brain-buster cases, you might want to poll spammers and ask them how many of them sign their spam with their real names. I'm going to guess that it's around 0% of them.

 

Well,

If your not the owner of the Z Directory, there is someone on the internet pretending to be you sending out spam emails to 35,000 Digital Point members.

 

I see we eliminated sarcasm.

Show me the spam that was signed: Mike Seiler

See the letters in red, after the S? Those are important because not all last names that start with an S have the same letters after the S.

I'm pretty sure I can't sue someone for identity theft because they're signing stuff with "Mike S." If I can, then it's going to be a bad year for anyone named Mike Simpson, Mike Smith, Mike Sheridan, etc... Hell, it's even my dad's name, so I guess he can expect a letter from my attorney!

And my legal rampage won't end there. I better not see anyone using the initials MS anywhere (Microsoft might even be in trouble here). I also won't be letting M. Seiler slide, so if there are any Mark/Matt/Melvin/etc... Seilers out there, they better stick with using their full names.

See where I'm going with this?

Did you poll spammers yet to see how many use their real name when they sign their spam mails? I'm just curious because I wanted to see how far off I was with my 0% guess.


Here's the spam I received... and I don't see my name in it:

Dear www.Z-directory.com  and www.ArticleZap.com  Customer

This is a welcome  E-mail for your FREE link submission.

Z-directory (Google PR5) has been providing its clients with a high quality links for over 4 years. 

www.Z-directory.com and www.Articlezap.com special Christmas offers:

www.Articlezap.com
Submit your article and get 3 free quality reciprocal links:
===============================
Submit your articles and links for free on www.ARTICLEZAP.com and get 3 free quality reciprocal links, 
including automated translations of your articles and submission to foreign language servers for additional exposure. 
Use Coupon Code [WELCOME2007] for 3 free additional submissions.


www.Z-directory.com
Buy one and get one for free:
================================
Submit a URL for as low as $4.95 and get another URL link for free. 
After submitting the first link, please send us an Email with promotion code
[GET2007]* with your additional link details.
* Valid until Jan 10th 2007, can be used for up to 10 free URLs per customer.

OR

Place a z-directory link on your web site (pr4 and up) and get 5 submissions for FREE!!!
Place the following HTML link on your site and contact us:
==============================
Z-<a href="http://www.z-directory.com">Directory</a> - A cheap links directory hybrid with content directory. Get a high PR link to your site for only $4.95. <br /> Boost your site with real action traffic from our <a href="http://www.z-directory.com">links directory</a>
 ==============================

Contact: info@z-directory.com

On behalf of z-Directory.com and the customer support team; thank you for using our services.
We look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Kind regards, and happy new year.

Mike S.
www.z-directory.com
info@z-directory.com
Support Team

Code (markup):

 

I would not get upset about it.

Who owns Z Directory ? Does any member here actually own it ?

If they do, who are they, and why are they signing their emails Mike S ?

 

No idea... they use Namecheap's WhoisGuard.

Sure, it's probably a member, since only members could have viewed our email addresses--but the chances of him confessing in this thread are pretty slim.

Probably because their first name isn't Mike and their last name doesn't start with an S. Spammers use random false info. Mike/Michael is one of the most common first names and S is one of the most common last initials because of common names like Smith.

 

I've received a couple as well. Not a huge deal, delete them and move on.

As far as this who 'Mike Seiler' is guilty thing goes, Mike: I've never laughed so hard in my life!

I wish people would think before making such nasty accusations, against Shawn first, and now Mike. You need better proof then common initials to justify publically ruining someone's reputation.

 

This email just came to me and 3 of my other friends here on DP. That person who said they have a DB of DP emails for sale wasn't kidding afterall.

 

Can you tell me the sibject so that I can check my spam folder as well. I get about 250 spam emails/day. Impossible to check everyone

 

Damn, i got that too! Is my email for sale?

I seriously hope no one signed up for that sucky site..

 

I also received this spam email! Not happy jan.

 

Well no one here stole database of DP.

Check at your profile page. You enable your E-mail option" Send a message via email to ly2" Trun of it and nobuddy can send mail you agian.

Its so simple.

 

So someone individually sent emails to us?

 

Yes. You just need disable this option from your user panal.

 

Thanks very much for clearing that up .

 

You are welcome buddy and be safe by using thi option.

 

I also recieved this!